Fitzgerald "Irony" or "poke-in-the-eye"?

Back in late 2008, the most popular question posed on President-Elect Obama's Change-dot-Gov web-Question Box, in 'round 2, came from Bob Fertik, of New York City, which read:

Will you appoint a Special Prosecutor (ideally Patrick Fitzgerald) to independently investigate the gravest crimes of the Bush Administration, including torture and warrantless wiretapping?

According to the July/August 2010 Mother Jones magazine, Fitzgerald has been assigned to investigate the CIA and torture. Unfortunately, the investigation is targeted not at the torturers, but at human rights investigators whose trails led them to CIA operatives.

You see, if, as a human rights attorney, your trail leads you to CIA personnel, and you put pictures of them in photo line-ups for your torture-victim clients to identify... then maybe you're exposing the identity CIA personnel even if you don't expose the person's name. Yes, as predicted by George Orwell and others, it's a wicked web that has been woven by the powers-that-be.

But it strikes me... is this simply irony that Fitzgerald would be given this assignment, or is it a poke-in-the-eye of the people calling for a full investigation of the US torture activities?

Sources:

Mother Jones Magazine, July/Aug. 2010.

GDAE Podcast - Episode 20

Human Exceptionalism II

• "Human Exceptionalism" with Rickback Bookbock: An extension of Episode 19 (Book "Ishmael") & Episode 18 (American Exceptionalism).
• MUSIC: Stephen Stills on guitar.
• Wall Street insider: Jim Finkle's new perspective on mortgage backed bonds, asset managers vs investment bankers, and Wall Street culture.
• Prosecute Bush: Conference on prosecution of Bush at Massachusetts School of Law at Andover hosted by Dean Lawrence Velvel, with views of Vincent Bugliosi and Christopher Pyle.

Play GDAE Podcast Episode 20 from this page.

Previous Episodes & 60-Sec Promo:

GDAE Podcast 60-Second Promo

GDAE Podcast Episode 19 September 27, 2009
GDAE Podcast Episode 18 September 16, 2009
GDAE Podcast Episode 17 August 31, 2009
GDAE Podcast Episode 16 July 30, 2009
GDAE Podcast Episode 15 June 17, 2009
GDAE Podcast Episode 14 June 10, 2009
GDAE Podcast Episode 13 May 22, 2009
GDAE Podcast Episode 12May 5, 2009
GDAE Podcast Episode 11 April 24, 2009
GDAE Podcast Episode 10 April 9, 2009
GDAE Podcast Episode 9March 28, 2009
GDAE Podcast Episode 8 March 15, 2009
GDAE Podcast Episode 7 March 1, 2009
GDAE Podcast Episode 6 February 17, 2009
GDAE Podcast Episode 5 February 6, 2009
GDAE Podcast Episode 4 January 24, 2009

Sources:

GDAE Podcast - Episode 19

Episode 19 - September 27, 2009 Human Exceptionalism

"Reality Sucks" might be the subtitle for Episode 19... Our exploration of "exceptionalism" leads to a realization that Americans are literally out of touch with reality... in part, because they know reality sucks and, in part, because many Americans believe that America is exceptional; They believe that our colonial founding was a stroke of genius unmatchable elsewhere in the world, and that this, and our uniquely American "can do" attitude, set us apart from other nations. We are bred to believe we are "the best," which means we must lead and we must have special rights to perform that noble mission. That is, the US must have special latitude to carry out it's leadership role. This invokes a pattern of questionable behavior by the US in which the "means justify the ends," because the "ends" are the ends of the exceptional, democratic United States.

This is just one chain of logic that emerges from exploring the concept of American exceptionalism. This exploration also steers us to observe the deep-rooted similarities between American conservatives and liberals who have the same breeding on American exceptionalism. Traditional exploration of the subject is strongly oriented toward foreign policy matters rather than domestic, in part because the subject is "the nation" and nations tend to interact with other nations.

However, a broader exploration sees the impact at home. American's in-grained cultural belief that they and their nation are "exceptional" is reflected in basic behaviors that some would say are unhealthy. One example is a "resting-on-laurels" orientation; "We're great by definition. We don't have to try to be great." In not trying to be great, many take on an attitude of... not trying in life in general. The daily world around is complicated. But there's an attitude that, "I'm an American; I don't need to worry about those complications." Chris Hedges observes that American's prolonged exceptional attitude has left many unequipped to function in society... for example illiterate and thus dependent on television and radio for their information... media that are corporate and right-wing celebrity dominated. You can see where this is going... now you can listen.

This subject was introduced in GDAE Podcast Episode 18 (see below). Episode 19 is a continuation.

• Human Exceptionalism: Insights from the book "Ishmael" by Daniel Quinn. Rickback Bookbock joins for a reading.
• MUSIC: 6th Avenue Heartache by the Wallflowers... CSN "In My Dreams" Excerpt.
  
• American Exceptionalism: Andrew Bacevich on false notions of military power and living beyond our means... Chris Hedges on Americans being out-of-touch with reality.
• Prosecute Bush: The Supreme International Crime by Nuremberg Trial Judge Robert Jackson.

Play GDAE Podcast Episode 18 from this page.

Previous Episodes & 60-Sec Promo:

GDAE Podcast 60-Second Promo

GDAE Podcast Episode 18 September 16, 2009
GDAE Podcast Episode 17 August 31, 2009
GDAE Podcast Episode 16 July 30, 2009
GDAE Podcast Episode 15 June 17, 2009
GDAE Podcast Episode 14 June 10, 2009
GDAE Podcast Episode 13 May 22, 2009
GDAE Podcast Episode 12May 5, 2009
GDAE Podcast Episode 11 April 24, 2009
GDAE Podcast Episode 10 April 9, 2009
GDAE Podcast Episode 9March 28, 2009
GDAE Podcast Episode 8 March 15, 2009
GDAE Podcast Episode 7 March 1, 2009
GDAE Podcast Episode 6 February 17, 2009
GDAE Podcast Episode 5 February 6, 2009
GDAE Podcast Episode 4 January 24, 2009


Sources:

Slavery is Alive and Well

Dusty's Blog, It's My Right to be Left of Center, has an informative piece on how the corporation that Dick Cheney headed, and still profits from, Halliburton/KBR, knowingly participated in modern day slavery. We also have McClatchy News Service to thank.

Lets beat the drum on the theme of criminal investigations. The new Attorney General needs to hear from us come January 20, 2009.

But in the mean time, we should all Contact President-elect Obama.

Psssst... Do Something

• Contact the Broadcast Media
  
• Contact the Newspapers
  
• Contact the US Senate
  
• Contact the House of Representatives

Sources:

Graphic Credit: Snape71

CIA forged letter's Influence on Domestic Opinion

We are facing a When in times of human events moment. The present Bush administration form of government has become destructive of deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. It is the right of the people to alter or abolish it.

Many actions of the Bush administration are designed to be nearly irreversible, such as the appointment of partisan operatives to the judicial bench, driving the treasury into debt as a means of weakening federal agencies that protect the environment and the rights of the common people, shifting that money and power to transnational corporations that steer the Bush administration from the shadows. The Congress is similarly captured by the influence of the consolidated wealth, leaving them impotent to reverse course.

Reversing course is no light and transient cause. Our inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are threatened by increasing evidence of a tightening police state in which corporate power is used by a small group of people who enter and exit the government at will to secure largess for themselves and their adherents. This intertwining of corporate and executive branch power, used to consolidate ever more power, is a hallmark of fascism; fascism isn't an "ism." It doesn't push a doctrine. It does anything necessary to grab power, even if that means pretending to promote a doctrine.

The situation is reaching a tipping point, evidenced by the revelations of Ron Suskind that the Bush administration ordered the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to forge a letter linking Iraq to 9/11 and the CIA's compliance. The CIA, restricted to foreign affairs, crossed a bright line when the forged Habbush letter was used to influence domestic opinion. Will the people of the United States simply accept this blatant abuse of power that was targeted at them? The Declaration of Independence says:

all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

It also says,
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.

Yes. We are living one of those When in times of human events moments.

Busy with Tball and Earth

Been busy with video editing, and learning, over the New Years holiday. The two fellows below have been dominating my time.
As has one of these.

Earth and the Human Tennis Ball

Hello Reykjavik, Welcome 2008

To honor a return visitor to my site, and because my transit through Iceland in September was far too brief, I thought I'd pause and smell the tundra.


First, I confess to knowing very little about Iceland, except that it's the "green" place, whereas, Greenland is the white, icy place. OK, I also know that President Reagan had nuclear weapons negotiations with the USSR in Reykjavik.

Well... I also know that it has lots of geothermal activity. I could see steam rising from the foothills and mountains as we flew out of the airport.


For those who revel in wide open spaces, Iceland seems to have much to offer. This picture of a farm in Laxa Valley gives some perspective to that.


Of course, the thermal spas, blue lagoon being the most famous, have an allure, which had me hoping we would have a longer stop-over on our way to Amsterdam. Maybe next time.





Now, I'm not sure if these "waterfalls of the Gods" are thermal spa water, or cold water (they have both in Iceland... that much I do know). Another opportunity for my Icelandic visitor to inform us.



I know these photos don't do it justice. And surely there are many more things about the history and culture that deserve mention, but alas, I have my Human Tennis Ball project awaiting me. Perhaps the visitors from Keykjavik can add a comment and some links that will help us better appreciate Iceland.

With that, I'll leave you with a sketch of the two funny guys who hope to have their fifteen minutes of fame some day. Tball hast to go lay down some video for a Nerdfighter Power Project for Awesome.

Earth and the Human Tennis Ball

Happy New Year 2008

United States: International Dictatorship

Are we so totally desensitized that the notion of "Secret US Prisons" elicits no ground swell of condemnation?

Joanne Mariner of Human Rights Watch asks, "where are these 39 people now, and what's happened to them since they 'disappeared'?"

"Disappeared." I thought that's what dictatorships did... make people disappear. Actually, knowing the recent history of Central America, I know that the US has a history of making people dissapear; Chile's Pinochet was supported by the US. And, actually, it's corporate power, which runs the US, that is behind the dictatorial behavior of the US government.

We're told we don't live under a dictatorship. That might be technically true domestically, but the United States of America is behaving like a dictator internationally.

Some have theorized that the US dictatorial behavior cannot be stopped from within the United States. They argue that it will have to be stopped from the outside. If so, it would be critical to have a massive internal movement linked with the external one to avoid a major war.

Sources:

Associated Press, "Report: 39 Secretly Imprisoned by U.S." RAPHAEL G. SATTER, June 7, 2007.